Electronic communications have dramatically changed the ways in which people communicate. Electronic mail, commonly referred to as e-mail, is a widely used form of electronic communication. E-mail is the exchange of computer-stored messages by telecommunication, over a network, such as the Internet. E-mail accounts for the largest percentage of total traffic on the Internet. E-mail usage is expected to increase exponentially in the next few years as increasing numbers of people have access to computers, and therefore, the World Wide Web (WWW).
E-mail communications are desirable, as they are current, usually in real time, and are non-intrusive. Conversely, a telephone call is intrusive, as it must be attended to at the moment it is received, and may interfere with the recipient's activities. The e-mail recipient may open the e-mail when desired, and may delete the e-mail without reading it.
E-mail distribution to individuals and organizations is quick and economical. Senders create recipient lists, that may include thousands of recipients. Recipient e-mail addresses can be added and deleted from the lists as desired. The e-mail is composed once and sent to multitudes of recipients, all of whom receive the e-mail instantaneously. The e-mail can be duplicated and sent to recipients from another recipient list, typically in the matter of minutes.
However, many e-mails that are sent are time sensitive, and become irrelevant, as they are not opened immediately, or at least close to the time that they were sent. Moreover, e-mails are static, as their content is in a final or fixed configuration prior to being sent. The content of these static e-mails can not be changed, so if opened after the desired time, they become irrelevant.
When used for advertising, the production of static e-mails, of fixed content prior to being sent, is problematic. This is because advertising campaigns are usually time-sensitive. If recipients do not open the e-mail within the requisite time, they do not benefit from the advertisement. This amounts to a waste of resources for both the sender and the recipient. Moreover, the recipient may view the advertiser as an annoyance to a point where they refuse to patronize the advertiser, the opposite of the result desired.
Other advertising campaigns on networks, such as the Internet, utilize key words or other identifiers. When a user returns a keyword or other identifier to a search engine, they receive listings. These listings are sometimes in a predetermined order, based on the party that controls the underlying listing paying the search engine or search provider a fee each time the listing appears and the user “clicks” on the listing, whereby the user's browser is directed to a web site corresponding to the clicked listing.
Users typically “click” on these top listings, whereby the web sites associated with these listings receive large numbers of hits. These numbers can be so large, as the browsers can not access the web sites corresponding to the listing, whereby a time out error occurs on the user's computer, as a result of the browser unsuccessfully accessing the web site. As a result, users may never access the target web site, whereby the listing and the payment therefor by the party associated with the listing was ineffective.
Additionally, e-mail based advertising campaigns have typically been limited by advertisers placing a finite number on the numbers of static e-mail that are sent to potential recipients. This is typically due to contractual limits, if a third party runs the campaign, or a decision to limit the amount of traffic to the advertiser's targeted web site. Excess traffic to a web site, to the point where it may not be manageable may result in the server or other devices supporting the web site to become non-functional or “crash”.